In this series of blogs that are to come I will be writing about a point relevant to diabetes that I go through in my day to day living and show how different a lifestyle it can really be, and to show, to the best of my knowledge through living with diabetes, biological functions, that I would be more than pleased to be corrected on, so do not fear leaving a `snarky` comment correcting me, I like to learn more and cross reference material with others; I may expand on such things as insulin, like how it is made, the resources needed to make it, the affects on the environment, monetary factors, and this will be a learning process for myself because much of what I just suggested I may write about I will need to do research as well.
Since this is the intro blog
Let me take you through my day.
Mornings: Wake up at 18:00-19:00, due to working nights in which I have to severely consider how much activity I am doing due to the affects of physical exercise and insulin sensitivity within my body, have to consider how much food I eat…there are many things that I could extrapolate upon in regards to work and diabetes - lets just title that work and leave that there for now.
I proceed to check my blood sugar, usually - have not been the spitting image of `perfect` in regards to diabetes - which again is something to take apart and dissect = the image of perfection within diabetes = perfection of care of health possibly - I'm sorry if I ramble, but as I write this I am noting this for myself later on so that I can refer back to it for topics to write about. And in the mornings I have been frequently high, so as I wake up, I've kinda just accepted this as `the way it is`, and reach for two needles that I have to inject 25 decilitres of one insulin, and depending on how high, or if I'm high, x amount of decilitres of another insulin into either my buttocks, the back of my arms, abdomen, or thighs. I favour the buttocks, thighs, and back of the arms for the insulin I inject 25 decilitres of ( I will go into further detail in time on the different types of insulin) and the abdomen for the insulin that I use depending on how much I eat and what the `level` of (my) sugar is.
I make breakfast, and consider what I will be doing in the following hours based on activity level of what I can and should not eat, and usually say "fuck it, I will eat what I would like to eat and inject insulin according to what I would like to eat", and sometimes all I like to eat in the morning is an apple and a banana. I will then inject insulin based on how much carbohydrates I will eat and what I will be doing in the next few hours and based off of `how I feel` meaning if I feel `heavy` then that usually means that the insulin sensitivity rate is low and I will need more insulin than if I were to not feel `heavy`. I then carry on with whatever task I have for the time being until I get ready for work
Before work I check the sugar again at about 21:30 - it is about 2 hours after my previous test - so that means that the insulin that I injected to correct the amount of food I ate will be at it's `peak activity` which I will explain another time, and since it is at it's peak activity the rate of transfer of sugar into the cells is highest here throughout the 4 hour lasting time of the injection and means that I need to consider if I need to eat before work in order to maintain a level sugar throughout the first period of work or if I need to inject more insulin to get myself to a stable point during work. If all is well then I make a lunch, which I stick to a routine within, meaning I usually eat the same thing each lunch so that I can work with minimal factors influencing the sugar level and stick to a routine that I have become adapted to at the moment.
Work: (23:00-7:00) Since it has become warmer recently I now bike to work that is about 15 minutes of activity which I have to consider how hard I am biking because as I get to work the insulin that I injected when I woke up will change sensitivity and it will affect the sugar level during the first period of work - so I suppose I can mention here that recently I have been going low just before work starts and usually eat a banana to correct it….since I started working nights, and even previously within the job that I do, days that I am not low during work is a rarity and I always carry 3 bananas with myself along with `emergency sugar` which is a candy that I will bring along because of the pattern shown throughout the time that I have been working. Since the job that I do is physically demanding I have to keep in mind when I've injected insulin and how much I've injected, like .5 of a unit will make a drastic change in the sugar level throughout the next period of work, and since it is physically demanding I need to cut back the amount of insulin that I would normally inject, which took a bit of time to figure out how much I needed to inject for the food that I ate, which is why I stick to the food routine. The sugar levels during work are usually in the `acceptable range` (4mmol-8mmol) and I suppose that is due to the physical activity and the balancing of sugar correction throughout the periods of work. A point to mention here, that I will write about later, is the affect of adrenaline and noticing the symptoms of being low.
Getting home/school: (7:00-12:00) When I get home the sugar level is normally good because of the work that I just did and the affects of activity, although there have been times where I have been high returning from work which I do not exactly know the reason for, but have based it on the fact that I slow down my activity during work near the end of the night. I test my blood sugar and only eat something small like an apple because when I did eat cereal or something high in carbohydrates the time during school I would be running high for a while and correcting the sugar during school has been a pain in the ass for sometime because if I am high and I need to correct the sugar, the affect of dropping in sugar level is similar to the experience of being low and I find it incredibly hard to concentrate when this is happening, so I decided to eat something small which I normally don't need insulin for, because of the activity of work, which has been supportive recently since I do not experience too many lows during school any longer and thus can concentrate a lot better, not to mention give myself the ability to process the information. During school I inject 23 decilitres of insulin again. I used to be very self conscious about injecting insulin in front of people to the point where I would not inject insulin when eating if I was in public which was quite dangerous now looking at it.
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When I get home from school, I test again, eat, inject insulin and sit down for about 2 hours studying if I need to or fall asleep. Eating so early to bed has been a problem and is most likely the cause to the morning highs, although I have noticed some other factors that can really influence the sugar level in the morning such as stress or simply resistance to working on something.
In the next posts I will certainly go into much more detail and take apart many aspects of a diabetic life and expand on the relationship lines between each aspect, but for now I hope that this overview gives you an insight into what a diabetic lives with and has to consider on a daily basis, and possibly information that you can apply to your own life.
